Learning to program for OSX
- Thread starter owaters
- Start date
Owater,
A small question with many many answers... If I read you correctly you have no experience with programming languages. Now that implies you first need to learn at least one. When you start learning a programming language you will also need to learn ProjectBuilder, the I(ntegrated) D(evelopment) E(nvironment) that comes free (downloadable) with OS X. Once you get yourself going with one language you will be able to take up other stuff as Interface Builder and extend your applcation with stuff as AppleScript.
As a nice start to any pgm language you might take C (pls. see the other discussions on "which" language).
When you start with C you can start from the very scratch. Most books on C take in account the Unix platform but do not treat the OS X PB IDE.
So let me help out here. Get yourself a book on C programming with rave reviews on amazon.com (you don't have to buy it there
.
Start ProjectBuilder (you'll have to OK some defaults initially) and choose:
1) ProjectBuilder>File>New File.
2) Choose Carbon>C file.
3) Type a file name fi 'test01.c' and
4) Deselect "also create" 'test01.h'.
5) Set Location: ~/
6) Add to Project: none
7) Click "Finish" or <Enter>
Now PB's editor starts up.
8) Remove the #include carbon statement.
9) Now start typing your first book lesson, probably something like:
int main() {
printf("Hello World\n");
}
and !Save the file.
10) Open Terminal (it's in Utilities)
11) Type: cc test01.c <Enter>
cc invokes the compiler, test01.c should be the name of your abive saved file.
12) Now type: ~/a.out <Enter>
You will see the 'Hello World' text being printed on the terminal.
This way at least you can start learning to program from the book. You will learn PB along the way later as it is a very very nice tool but it reacts 'strange' to these simple programs from the books with scanf and printf statements. For simple C programming choose 'C tool' when you open a project in PB later.
Notice your file and a.out in your home directory.
Good luck whichever way you choose to go! Small tip, finish the book(s) completely (as most people stop half way) as that will make you a good programmer.
Hope this helps
A small question with many many answers... If I read you correctly you have no experience with programming languages. Now that implies you first need to learn at least one. When you start learning a programming language you will also need to learn ProjectBuilder, the I(ntegrated) D(evelopment) E(nvironment) that comes free (downloadable) with OS X. Once you get yourself going with one language you will be able to take up other stuff as Interface Builder and extend your applcation with stuff as AppleScript.
As a nice start to any pgm language you might take C (pls. see the other discussions on "which" language).
When you start with C you can start from the very scratch. Most books on C take in account the Unix platform but do not treat the OS X PB IDE.
So let me help out here. Get yourself a book on C programming with rave reviews on amazon.com (you don't have to buy it there
. Start ProjectBuilder (you'll have to OK some defaults initially) and choose:
1) ProjectBuilder>File>New File.
2) Choose Carbon>C file.
3) Type a file name fi 'test01.c' and
4) Deselect "also create" 'test01.h'.
5) Set Location: ~/
6) Add to Project: none
7) Click "Finish" or <Enter>
Now PB's editor starts up.
8) Remove the #include carbon statement.
9) Now start typing your first book lesson, probably something like:
int main() {
printf("Hello World\n");
}
and !Save the file.
10) Open Terminal (it's in Utilities)
11) Type: cc test01.c <Enter>
cc invokes the compiler, test01.c should be the name of your abive saved file.
12) Now type: ~/a.out <Enter>
You will see the 'Hello World' text being printed on the terminal.
This way at least you can start learning to program from the book. You will learn PB along the way later as it is a very very nice tool but it reacts 'strange' to these simple programs from the books with scanf and printf statements. For simple C programming choose 'C tool' when you open a project in PB later.
Notice your file and a.out in your home directory.
Good luck whichever way you choose to go! Small tip, finish the book(s) completely (as most people stop half way) as that will make you a good programmer.
Hope this helps
aaike
bacteria-troubled-brain
I don't know what ideas you got in mind but I think you should have a look at www.konfabulator.com and see if what you want to create fits in there... It might be a good start for creating simple, but nice thing...
owaters
Registered
Thanks guys.
I know quite a lot of VisualBasic, but obviously that's no good in the Mac world.
I have only learnt Visual Basic through a course I am doing at college for 2 years now.
I know AppleScript aswell.
Downloaded the Developer Tools a while back, but never installed it, as I only have 300MB left on my HD. Need a new computer!
Thanks for your help
I know quite a lot of VisualBasic, but obviously that's no good in the Mac world.
I have only learnt Visual Basic through a course I am doing at college for 2 years now.
I know AppleScript aswell.
Downloaded the Developer Tools a while back, but never installed it, as I only have 300MB left on my HD. Need a new computer!
Thanks for your help
Hey Guys,
Platform Switcher. Know Microsoft Visual Studio 6 (Visual C++, VB 6.0). I'm jumping over to Cocoa and bought several great books. I'll endorse them here but there's some definate things I want to address:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...1/ref=cm_lm_asin/104-6078663-6132717?v=glance
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...1/ref=cm_lm_asin/104-6078663-6132717?v=glance
For Real Basic:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...132717?v=glance&s=books&vi=reader#reader-link
Now after diving into these new languages, there are a couple of things that I'm realizing. Like many things on the Mac, its very different from the C++ or Visual Basic that I was using. Here's what I'm looking for that I can't find even in good programming books....
Tutorials, CBT's like there are millions for VB on the web! If we could write a whole section dedicated to that aspect I'd be really happy.
I bought the professional version of RealBasic and spend most of my time programming in VB for databases. I've since heavily committed myself to the market to learn how to database program on the Mac--I believe this will be a real growth oriented market.
The manuals for Real are nice in that they have a listing of all their functions and opbjects. They have a mini tuitorial but the database with RB sucks for heavy duty stuff and I'm looking into MySQL right now for my Mac to do some real heavy DB stuff.
Are there any programmers out there hard core on the Mac DB side of things? How about resources dedicated totally to Mac database functions?
I have almost every current VB 6 publication ou there and database programming with VB 6 from sybex solved my problem when learning VB on my PC.
What have you guys got?
Platform Switcher. Know Microsoft Visual Studio 6 (Visual C++, VB 6.0). I'm jumping over to Cocoa and bought several great books. I'll endorse them here but there's some definate things I want to address:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...1/ref=cm_lm_asin/104-6078663-6132717?v=glance
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...1/ref=cm_lm_asin/104-6078663-6132717?v=glance
For Real Basic:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...132717?v=glance&s=books&vi=reader#reader-link
Now after diving into these new languages, there are a couple of things that I'm realizing. Like many things on the Mac, its very different from the C++ or Visual Basic that I was using. Here's what I'm looking for that I can't find even in good programming books....
Tutorials, CBT's like there are millions for VB on the web! If we could write a whole section dedicated to that aspect I'd be really happy.
I bought the professional version of RealBasic and spend most of my time programming in VB for databases. I've since heavily committed myself to the market to learn how to database program on the Mac--I believe this will be a real growth oriented market.
The manuals for Real are nice in that they have a listing of all their functions and opbjects. They have a mini tuitorial but the database with RB sucks for heavy duty stuff and I'm looking into MySQL right now for my Mac to do some real heavy DB stuff.
Are there any programmers out there hard core on the Mac DB side of things? How about resources dedicated totally to Mac database functions?
I have almost every current VB 6 publication ou there and database programming with VB 6 from sybex solved my problem when learning VB on my PC.
What have you guys got?
Owater,
When you can't use ProjectBuilders editor you could try 'vi'.
(as TextEdit does not save in plain text as far as I know.)
VI is a rudimentary editor available on the Terminal command line. I suggest you open two terminal windows, one to run your a.out and one to keep editing and saving your source. Of course you would need to learn vi but there are some nice and short manuals on the web which will help you out in only half an hour of reading. (I suggest that you read first as even quitting vi is 'impossible' to even guess.)
Hmm. I wonder whether the (G)CC compiler option is available when you have not installed PB. Then again, You may be able to select to install the (G)CC compiler only without installing the PB IDE.
Good luck anyway.
(New disk are cheaper than new computers
When you can't use ProjectBuilders editor you could try 'vi'.
(as TextEdit does not save in plain text as far as I know.)
VI is a rudimentary editor available on the Terminal command line. I suggest you open two terminal windows, one to run your a.out and one to keep editing and saving your source. Of course you would need to learn vi but there are some nice and short manuals on the web which will help you out in only half an hour of reading. (I suggest that you read first as even quitting vi is 'impossible' to even guess.)
Hmm. I wonder whether the (G)CC compiler option is available when you have not installed PB. Then again, You may be able to select to install the (G)CC compiler only without installing the PB IDE.
Good luck anyway.
(New disk are cheaper than new computers